Learning Design: What is essential for a sound lesson?
1. Begin Each New Topic or Chunk with Unit Thinking.
Best Practices:
- Survey the topic or chunk- 10 -15 lessons worth of "stuff." What are important terms, concepts, skills?
- Examine curriculum documents that exist in District. Check Tech Paths for available units. (User name- grd(grade level)core; password: grd(grade level)core)
- Survey standards and performance indicators that are important, applicable and central to the discipline. Check out NYS Standards and Performance Indicators at AccelerateU.
- Unpack the standards and performance indicators. Nouns/ noun phrases become important vocabulary terms. Verbs (with the objects of verbs) become skills to be taught.
- Use identified standards and performance indicators to consider final student products.
2. Be sure to have a quality learning goal.
Best Practices:
- Be sure that it is a cognitive learning goal rather than simply completing an activity.
- Completes the stem: Students will better understand....Students will.... (verb) (content) Students will better understand the concept of European imperialism in Africa and Asia. Students will - Define the term imperialism
- Explain the different forms imperialism took. - Post the learning goal in the same spot each day
- Orally reference the learning goal early in the lesson; use it as a focus of closure at lesson's end.
3. Be sure that students- each student- is producing something in your classroom using the knowledge.
Best practices:
- Don't provide input for too long without stopping for students to engage the content themselves. (Rule of Thumb:Time of input= age)
- Production can be oral (talk with a partner), written (provisional writing or notemaking), spatial (picture or graphic representation) or physical (signalling)
4. Use Starter Activities
Best Practices:
- Have students move into production mode as quickly as possible upon entering the room.
- Have students work independently to quiet the room and engage the kids in the content.
- Starter activity can be review of previous lessons or serve as a set or hook for today's lesson.
5. Deepen Engagement By Asking Students to Engage in Identifying Similarities and Differences
Best Practices:
- Foster connections between different pieces of content by seeking patterns between them.
- Questioning for comparison: How is x similar to and different from Y? How is this connected to that? What does this remind you of from your own life? Analogy: How is this similar to.......
- Three-way Tie
- Students need to be taught "how to" compare- Use formal comparison
6. Use Writing in the Classroom
Best Practices:
- Have students maintain a "learning log" for daily use.
- Use provisional writing daily: Ask students to respond to prompts to kindle thinking at the beginning of lessons.
- Ask students to write explanations or summaries after first instruction.
- Use Readable Writing Weekly: Students write extended pieces on a weekly basis. Opportunities for feedback and rewriting.
- Use Polished Writing Monthly: Extended pieces with feedback and multiple revisions and edits.
Learning Design: What is essential for a sound lesson?
1. Begin Each New Topic or Chunk with Unit Thinking.
Best Practices:
- Survey the topic or chunk- 10 -15 lessons worth of "stuff." What are important terms, concepts, skills?- Examine curriculum documents that exist in District. Check Tech Paths for available units. (User name- grd(grade level)core; password: grd(grade level)core)
- Survey standards and performance indicators that are important, applicable and central to the discipline. Check out NYS Standards and Performance Indicators at AccelerateU.
- Unpack the standards and performance indicators. Nouns/ noun phrases become important vocabulary terms. Verbs (with the objects of verbs) become skills to be taught.
- Use identified standards and performance indicators to consider final student products.
2. Be sure to have a quality learning goal.
Best Practices:- Be sure that it is a cognitive learning goal rather than simply completing an activity.
- Completes the stem: Students will better understand....Students will.... (verb) (content)
Students will better understand the concept of European imperialism in Africa and Asia. Students will
- Define the term imperialism
- Explain the different forms imperialism took.
- Post the learning goal in the same spot each day
- Orally reference the learning goal early in the lesson; use it as a focus of closure at lesson's end.
3. Be sure that students- each student- is producing something in your classroom using the knowledge.
Best practices:- Don't provide input for too long without stopping for students to engage the content themselves. (Rule of Thumb:Time of input= age)
- Production can be oral (talk with a partner), written (provisional writing or notemaking), spatial (picture or graphic representation) or physical (signalling)
4. Use Starter Activities
Best Practices:- Have students move into production mode as quickly as possible upon entering the room.
- Have students work independently to quiet the room and engage the kids in the content.
- Starter activity can be review of previous lessons or serve as a set or hook for today's lesson.
5. Deepen Engagement By Asking Students to Engage in Identifying Similarities and Differences
Best Practices:- Foster connections between different pieces of content by seeking patterns between them.
- Questioning for comparison: How is x similar to and different from Y? How is this connected to that? What does this remind you of from your own life? Analogy: How is this similar to.......
- Three-way Tie
- Students need to be taught "how to" compare- Use formal comparison
6. Use Writing in the Classroom
Best Practices:- Have students maintain a "learning log" for daily use.
- Use provisional writing daily: Ask students to respond to prompts to kindle thinking at the beginning of lessons.
- Ask students to write explanations or summaries after first instruction.
- Use Readable Writing Weekly: Students write extended pieces on a weekly basis. Opportunities for feedback and rewriting.
- Use Polished Writing Monthly: Extended pieces with feedback and multiple revisions and edits.